After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, the number of black players peaked in the 1970s and 1980s when approximately 18.0% of players were identified as black.

While the number of black players has declined, baseball's diversity has continued to increase. In 2013, 28.2% of players were Hispanic, a figure that has doubled in the last 25 years. In addition, as recently as 1996, less than 0.5% of rosters consisted of Asian players. That figure was 2.1% in 2013.

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Data via MLB.com, NYTimes.com, and the Society for American Baseball Research